All in a Name
by Nimfalath
Summary: After being stabbed by Hiro, Sylar loses his memories of the past seven months. Set a few days after season finale. DISCONTINUED temporarily


**Disclaimer: I (unfortunately) do not own anything related to Heroes.**

**Author: Nimfalath**

**Setting: A few days after the season one finale**

**quick!Summary: Gabriel loses (most of) his memory**

**-::-**

* * *

When he came to there was a pounding in his head. It forced him out of his sleep and pried his eyes open, whether they were adjusted to the lights or not. At first he couldn't focus, but at length his eyes became accustomed to the white and (after taking a cursory glance around the room) he turned his attention to the cause of the defining sound. A man was sitting in a chair across the blank room, tapping his foot lightly on the linoleum. With each touch of the man's toe an earsplitting blast shot through his skull. He opened his mouth to speak, but found his throat uncomfortably dry, his tongue a limp mass. He sucked in a lungful of air through his nose and glanced down at his wrists. He flexed his hand and felt a needle inside his arm. Nearby a shrieking beep alerted him to every beat of his heart, which also pounded obnoxiously in his ears. The suddenness of it all hit him at once and a moan bubbled in his throat. The sounds overwhelmed him and he closed his eyes, trying desperately to fall back into the comfortable darkness. His efforts failed and he simply grew dizzy from the business of it all. He heard the tapping stop, replaced immediately by heavy shuffling, louder in his ears than the tapping had ever been. He winced and whimpered, fighting the restraints around his arms. When he opened his eyes he saw the man standing above him. 

Up close he stared at the man. Through the swimming vision he could make out distinct glasses, a hard face. The slow beat of the man's heart was the most noticeable thing, though, and so he shut his eyes tightly again, willing the agony to stop.

"You're in pretty bad shape." The voice that came from the man was unsympathetic, relentlessly piercing his eardrums. "Can you tell me what happened?" Apathy. His breathing slowed then, but he couldn't concentrate through the crushing sounds. He couldn't remember...he concentrated harder, forcing his mind to delve into the depths of his memory...Gabriel. He had a name. He could see his house, the walls filled with clocks and books. He could see his shop, the one his father had left him to care for. His life was in that shop, he remembered. He tried to recall any sort of event that would have led to his current predicament. He shut his eyes tightly, pushing deeper into his memory. He remembered a man...what was his name? Suresh...He had come into the shop and...said something, given him a book. Gabriel could remember nothing past that. He didn't bother trying to speak again. Instead, he slowly shook his head, his eyes never leaving the tall man.

"The nurse will be with you shortly," the man said plainly. He smiled, but it was a shallow, emotionless smile. "You should probably try to rest. Don't worry, you'll live." Gabriel relaxed against the pillow, letting the man's last words sink in. Suddenly he was nauseous, falling and swimming through darkness. The man's face lingered in his mind, but soon it faded with the rest of the sounds and at last he was at peace again.

* * *

Gabriel moaned softly. His head was splitting. He opened his eyes briefly, blinking through the lights, and then shut them again. At first everything seemed to have returned to normal, but as he sat there the volume of the room began to rise until it was pounding deafeningly in his ears. He let out a cry, willing the painful noises away. There was a haze over his mind, preventing him from focusing and thinking clearly. That only added to his discomfort. A door opened and the handle's _click_ ripped through his ears. He heard voices in the hallway for a moment before the door closed again. He opened his eyes to stare at the nurse who walked over to his bed, clipboard in hand. 

"Well, hello Mr. Gray," she said, far too happy. "It's good to see you're awake." Gabriel wanted to scream at her to stop, to just be quiet and leave him in peace. She seemed to sense his discomfort. "How are you feeling? Are you sore?" Gabriel opened his mouth and forced air through his dusty voice box.

"No..." he said. The second the raspy voice sounded he jumped a little. It was so foreign, unrecognizable. He smiled, crinkling his nose and realizing the oxygen tubes for the first time. "Well, a little." The nurse giggled a little and moved to his other side, recording levels that appeared on the machines there.

"You're on a lot of drugs," she murmured, "so you shouldn't be feeling much. As soon as we take you off of them, though, you're going to be in a lot of pain from that injury." Her eyes darted up from her clipboard and stared Gabriel in the eyes. "Do you remember what happened? Anything at all?"

"The only thing I remember," Gabriel wheezed, "is being at the shop...with the watches..." A smile spread across the nurse's face.

"A worker found you in the sewer," she told him. "You were unconscious and had lost a lot of blood." Gabriel shuddered and his mind raced. "It looks like something punctured you through the upper abdomen, clean through to your back. Luckily for you, whatever caused this somehow missed all of your vital organs, and we were able to save you...Are you sure you don't remember anything?"

Gabriel's mind reeled. Even without this horrifying news, the numbing medication and the insistent pounding had caused his head to spin. Now, in the light of this new information, he felt as though his head would explode. He was almost certain he would remember crawling into a sewer. His pulse quickened. _What was I doing..._ Gabriel wasn't one for being adventurous. Even his career path was safe and normal: he was a simple watchmaker, the son of a simple watchmaker. He had never been prone to danger and had certainly never considered crawling around through raw sewage. Gabriel swallowed hard, cringing at the scratchiness of his throat.

"Yeah. I'm sure."

"You were found near a construction site, so we think you may have had an accident with some of the equipment," she explained as she brought her attention back to the chart in her hands. "It's pretty hard to see where you're going down there, especially at night."

'Yeah," he answered. He glanced at his wrist and noticed the absence of his watch. He sighed. It had been a favorite watch of his, and it was hard to be very punctual when he couldn't tell the time. That reminded him...He thought of the shop, of the orders he had to fill. How long had he been gone? _Only a few days,_ he prayed. _Then I can just work for a few days straight and catch up..._"What day is it?" He asked, closing his eyes.

"November 11," the nurse told him. Gabriel's blood ran cold.

"Wh-What?"

"November 11," she stated again, watching him carefully. He felt his heart stop and start again, beating progressively faster. _That's...that's not possible..._

"No..." Gabriel whispered. "It was April..."

"You've only been in the hospital for two days," the nurse said, alarmed. "You must have suffered some heavy memory loss in the trauma." Gabriel's mind spun a million miles per hour. "Which is odd...because to our knowledge you didn't sustain any damage to your head..." Six months. He closed his eyes again and concentrated on the sounds instead. The volume of her scratching pencil flickered for a few moments, but soon it was screeching again. He sucked in a lungful of air and held it. It was going to be a long day.

* * *

"Mr. Gray?" Her voice blasted in his ears, but he furrowed his brows and sounds returned to their normal levels. By now he had sort of learned to control the intensity of the noises he heard. It was strange the way he'd discovered it the other day as he had lain in his bed. It was like...something had finally clicked in his head and he innately knew how to utilize the strange talent. He had yet to master it, but he wasn't about to complain. As far as he was concerned, turning down the volume was the only thing worth learning to do. He smiled at the nurse; he as feeling much better today. "You're going to be released today." 

Warmth spread through his body and he beamed. Home! It was well overdo. He'd been trapped in this hospital for far too long.

"I'm going to check your systems one last time, and then you can get dressed and go home," she told him, sounding almost as excited as he was.

"Dressed?" Gabriel chuckled. "The only clothes I have are the ones I was wearing when you found me...I'm not getting back in those."

"Of course not," she smiled. "Your friend in the glasses brought you some fresh clothes." His 'friend.' He didn't know the man, but he recognized him as the face he'd woken up to. "He and another man visited you a lot before you woke up."

"Yeah, I know him," Gabriel said. "I guess..." he added under his breath. _Maybe I met him some time in the last few months,_ he thought. He didn't spend much time thinking about it though; he was going home, which was all that mattered.

Gabriel stood outside the door and took a breath. He didn't know why, but for some reason it seemed strange to be in his old cardigan and glasses standing in front of his apartment. It was almost alien, even though it was one of the only homes he had known. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. When he flipped on the light the first thing he noticed were his dusty clocks hanging on the wall. He had heard them ticking away from outside, but when he stood basking in the warmth of their pulse it soothed him. Almost immediately he picked out a slow beat from the group. He tuned his ears to the single voice marring the unity and easily identified the culprit. He smiled. This skill was more useful than he'd thought.

Quickly shutting the door, Gabriel wasted no time plucking the timepiece from the wall. He mechanically brought it to his counter where his tools were still neatly spread out and began pulling the clock apart until he'd exposed its whirring gears. He could hear the problem with his sensitive ears, and knew intuitively what was wrong. A few moments later he replaced the piece to its spot on the wall and grinned with satisfaction as its synchronized tick joined the others. For a moment he stood still, listening to every beat issuing from the apartment. He was really enjoying this ability now that he could control it.

Gabriel's heart stopped. He probed back through his blank mind until his thoughts rested on his last memory before the hospital. He could see Chandra's face perfectly, recall every word he had said. He had suggested that Gabriel was somehow a part of his theory...human evolution. Was this thing--this ability he possessed--what he meant? He winced at a shot of pain that spread through his body. Speeding to the kitchen, he tore through the cupboards until he found some painkillers. He took three. The hospital had given him some medicine to take, but he was impatient and the pain was killing him. He delicately lifted his shirt and peered down at the stitched-up wound scarring his stomach. He ran a finger over the red skin before dropping his shirt. It didn't make any sense. How the hell had he gone and stabbed himself in the sewer? It wasn't just that, though. He couldn't remember _anything _past Suresh's visit. Six months were _gone_, just like that. _Suresh..._

He ran into his room and found the book lying on the end table there. He picked it up and dropped onto his bed, clutching at the cover. 'Activating Evolution.' He slowly opened it and turned through the first few pages. 'Scientists are fascinated by puzzles,' it began, 'and I am no exception...'

Darkness had set and dissipated by the time Gabriel reached the last pages. He found himself lured into the words, fascinated by the ideas and unable to put it down for even a second. It spoke to him, told him how he was special, how others were special. His mind greedily took every word from the page, soaking in every detail, every vision. Chandra communicated to him through the lines left in this book, told him the secrets of his concepts and ambitions. It was late in the morning when Gabriel finally closed it, and for the longest time he remained motionless, reeling from Chandra's lingering voice. At length he reopened the cover of the book, his eyes resting on the scribbled words at the top of the cover.

_"I've written my phone number and address inside," _Suresh had told him. _"If you're interested, call me."_

"Yes, Chandra," Gabriel breathed. "I'm very interested..."

He jumped up and grabbed the phone, dialing the written numbers with precision. With the first ring he felt his heart skip a beat. His hands were trembling, and though he tried to calm down he found that he couldn't stop the shivering or the racing of his heart. He couldn't help but feel in his heart that this was somehow destiny. Chandra Suresh was going to rescue him from his boring, average life and tell him that he was special. At last Gabriel was part of something.

"Hello?" Gabriel nearly jumped when he heard the voice. It was much different than the voice he remembered. It was younger, and somewhat drowsy.

"Dr. Suresh?" he asked, clearing his throat. His voice was shaking and still retained the scratchy, dry tone that made it sound foreign even to his own ears.

"Yes..." the voice responded, wary now. He spoke slowly and carefully. "Who is this?"

"I'm Gabriel Gray," he responded, his heart swelling with relief. "You came to my shop and I read you're book. I think you're right, I am a part of it." There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

"I...I think you mean my father," the voice said. Gabriel's joy had been short-lived. "He died not too long ago," it whispered.

"Oh," Gabriel said, his blood running cold. He had just seen Chandra...well, it had been six, almost seven months ago. Anything could have happened in six months. "How...how did he die?"

"He was murdered," the voice said softly. Gabriel murmured another 'oh' and 'I'm sorry.' Destiny had screwed him over. The man who was supposed to save him from his normality had been murdered before he had a chance to learn the real potential behind his ability. It was shocking and heartbreaking, and the defeated Gabriel dropped back onto the bed with an exasperated sigh. "Gabriel Gray?" Suresh asked suddenly.

"Yes." He could hear a clicking from the other end of the phone, like typing on a keyboard. There was another long silence and Gabriel began to wonder if the man had forgotten about him. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, the voice came back through the line.

"I can still help you. Your name is on my father's list," he said, thrilled suddenly. "Do you think you have an ability?" Gabriel felt a smile creep onto his face.

"Yeah," he said, clearing his throat again. "I think I do."

"Well, let's not talk about it over the phone. Would you like to meet? Why don't you come over around noon?" Gabriel laughed, relieved.

"That would be great. Your father gave me the address...do you live in his apartment?"

"Yes," the voice said. "I'm Mohinder, by the way."

"It's nice to meet you," Gabriel said through his smile. "I'll see you at noon, Mohinder."

"I look forward to it."

The phone was abruptly put back into its holder and Gabriel jumped up, overwhelmed with excitement. He saw from the clock on the wall that it was nearly ten. He realized the gnawing in his stomach and darted into the kitchen, adrenaline flooding his body for some unexplainable reason. He set a kettle of water on the stove and set the temperature to high, dropping two bags of Earl Grey into the water. As the tea heated, he searched his fridge for something to eat. Everything he had (which wasn't much to begin with) had expired, so he settled for popping some popcorn in the microwave.

He hoped the caffeine would startle the tiredness that was beginning to settle over him. Gabriel poured the steaming tea into a teacup, breathing the moist steam through his nose. He also hoped the tea would clear the scratchiness out of his throat. He sat the kettle back onto the burner and brought the hot drink to his lips. It burned his tongue at first, so he blew over the tea. When he brought the tea to his lips again, his tongue was met by frigid, icy liquid. He yelped and immediately let go of the freezing cup. It plummeted to the tile, where it hovered for a millisecond before smashing into pieces. Thoroughly startled, the panicked Gabriel shut off the burner and ran for his coat. His heart had jumped into his throat at some point in time, and he couldn't stop the shaking as he slid the jacket over his frame. He took a cursory glance around the room until he found Chandra's book. He quickly scooped it up and tore out of the room, without glancing behind.

It wasn't a very long cab ride to Mohinder's apartment. It had given him enough time to calm down, but not enough time to sit around and process what had happened. He climbed out of the cab and looked up at the place. Gabriel sighed, hoping that somehow this man would be able to help him. He could deal with the hearing, but if there was something else...he didn't know if he could handle it.

When he reached the door he stopped, listening inside the room as he held his breath. He could hear two distinct heartbeats, though one was quieter, smaller. The sound of typing could be heard even without his enhanced hearing. He let the breath out and knocked on the door. He was an hour early, but he hoped Mohinder wouldn't mind. He was too anxious to sit around at his apartment until the time passed; he had a lot of questions, and he was certain Mohinder could help him find the answers.

Immediately the typing stopped and he could hear footsteps make their way toward the door. When the door opened Gabriel found himself staring into the dark eyes of a man much younger than Chandra. His exotic skin was kissed by the sun and his dark curls hung into his eyes. Gabriel glanced down at the book and shifted his weight nervously.

"Um...You must be Mohinder," he murmured, looking back up at the man. He saw a sudden terror flash over the young man's face as their eyes met for the second time.

The door was promptly slammed in Gabriel's face.

* * *

_The rest of the chapters shouldn't be this long. I just wanted to give it a good, strong foundation to work with. :) I'll have the next chapter up as soon as I write it…_


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